History of Aksaray: From the Neolithic to Today

Aksaray is one of the oldest inhabited regions of Central Anatolia. The city lies at 980 metres where the Anatolian plateau meets Cappadocia, in the shadow of Mount Hasan, and people have lived on its land for about 10,000 years. From the Neolithic village of Aşıklı Höyük and the Assyrian trading town of Acemhöyük to the Roman colony of Archelais and the Seljuk city of Aksaray, this long story has left traces in every corner of the province.

In this guide we tell the history of Aksaray period by period, based on published sources: where the city’s name comes from, which civilisations left their mark, how Ibn Battuta and Evliya Çelebi described it, and its twentieth-century journey from province to district and back again. Links in the text lead to a detailed page for each place mentioned.

Where the name Aksaray comes from

The city’s name has passed through several languages over thousands of years. Hittite texts call the settlement Kurşaura. Over time the name underwent a sound change and became Garsaura: the “k” became a voiced “g” and the “u” turned into “a”. The ancient geographer Strabo mentions the town as Garsaura in his Geographica. Some sources also associate the names Šinaḫuttum and Nenaşşa in Hittite texts with this area.

Archelaus, the last king of Cappadocia, rebuilt and enlarged Garsaura and gave it his own name: Archelais, “the city of Archelaus” — the same tradition that produced Caesarea (Kayseri) and Herakleia (Ereğli). In Roman and Byzantine times the town was known as Colonia, and in Byzantine sources as Koloneia.

After the Turks arrived in Anatolia, the name Garsaura was adapted to Turkish phonology, first as Taksara, then Aksara and Aksaray; some Ottoman documents still write “Aksara”. In other words, “Aksaray” is the Turkish pronunciation of a name more than a thousand years old.

The legend of the “White Palace”

Aksaray means “White Palace” in Turkish, and both local tradition and Evliya Çelebi’s Book of Travels claim the city was named after a white palace built by the Seljuk Sultan Kılıç Arslan II. According to Evliya, two bronze lions stood at either side of the palace gate, and anyone who tried to harm the palace was struck down by sparks from their mouths; because the palace looked dazzling white from afar, the city was called Aksaray.

Charming as it is, the story has no official or historical basis — the name comes from Garsaura, as explained above. Still, the “White Palace” legend shows how vividly the splendour of Seljuk Aksaray lived on in popular memory.

Prehistory: Aşıklı Höyük, Anatolia’s first village

The first, and perhaps most remarkable, chapter of Aksaray’s history was written about 25 km south-east of the city at Aşıklı Höyük, on the banks of the Melendiz river. The first known village in Central Anatolia, where hunter-gatherers settled down, Aşıklı was continuously inhabited between 8200 and 7400 BC by at least 30–35 generations.

Excavations began in 1989 as a rescue dig led by Prof. Ufuk Esin of Istanbul University, because the waters of the Mamasın Dam threatened to flood the mound. Work continued under Prof. Nur Balkan Atlı in 2000–2003 and, from 2006, under Prof. Mihriban Özbaşaran and Dr Güneş Duru. More than 400 rooms have been uncovered so far.

Aşıklı is a place of many firsts. It has the oldest known example of Anatolia’s traditional terraced, rectangular mud-brick architecture; wild barley, wheat and legumes were first cultivated here; and copper beads found in burials are the region’s earliest evidence of metalworking. A hole in the skull of a woman who died aged about 20–25 is considered the earliest known brain surgery (trepanation) — the bone around it had started to heal, showing she survived the operation for a while.

The people of Aşıklı made tools from obsidian (volcanic glass) sourced around Mount Hasan, a precious material traded as far as Cyprus and Mesopotamia. The nearby site of Musular served as a satellite of Aşıklı in the 8th millennium BC.

Read the full story in our guide to Aşıklı Höyük.

Bronze Age: Acemhöyük and the Assyrian trading colonies

Some 18–20 km west of Aksaray, Acemhöyük is one of the largest mounds in Anatolia, 700 × 600 metres across and 20 metres high. The town grew from the Early Bronze Age (around 2500 BC) and peaked during the Assyrian Trading Colony period of the 20th–18th centuries BC.

Only a few of the towns named in the Kültepe (Kanesh) tablets were ruled by a “Great King”, and Acemhöyük is believed to have been one of them. Philologists identify it with the famous Purushattum of Akkadian and Hittite texts; one Akkadian text tells how the king of Akkad marched against the city after merchants complained about it.

The Sarıkaya Palace on the south side of the mound is the best-preserved building of its age in Anatolia. Clay sealings found in its rooms bear the seal impressions of King Shamshi-Adad I of Upper Mesopotamia and King Aplahanda of Carchemish, proving direct contact with the great powers of the day. A fierce fire destroyed the town in the 18th century BC; some of the finds are on display in the Aksaray Museum.

Iron Age: the kingdom of Šinuḫtu and the Aksaray Stele

After the fall of the Hittite Empire, small Neo-Hittite kingdoms arose across Central Anatolia. The Aksaray area lay within the kingdom that Assyrian sources call Šinuḫtu.

The most important document of this era is the Aksaray Stele, found in the city centre in 1976 and now in the Aksaray Museum. The stone block, 88 cm high and 90 cm wide with its upper half missing, shows a weather god facing right and wearing pointed shoes. On the back, a Luwian hieroglyphic inscription records King Kiyakiya describing the prosperity of his reign and the benevolence of the weather god Tarhunzas.

Kiyakiya is thought to be the same person as Kiakki, king of Šinuḫtu in Assyrian texts and an ally of King Wasusarma of Tabal. In 718 BC the Neo-Assyrian king Sargon II captured Šinuḫtu and deported its king. Aksaray, in other words, lay very close to the heart of a kingdom named in written records.

The kingdom of Cappadocia and Rome: Archelais

In the Hellenistic period the region belonged to the kingdom of Cappadocia. Its last king, Archelaus (36 BC – AD 17), rebuilt Garsaura as Archelais. After Cappadocia became a Roman province in AD 17, Emperor Claudius granted the town the status of a colony (colonia). Standing at a junction of major Anatolian roads, the city flourished and was known in Roman times simply as “Colonia”.

The site of today’s Aksaray High School is known to stand on the remains of a Roman bathhouse (thermae). On the slopes of Mount Hasan south of the city lie the ruins of the Roman and Byzantine town of Viranşehir (Mokissos).

Christianity and the Byzantine era: Koloneia

Cappadocia is one of the key regions of early Christian history. In the 4th century the “Cappadocian Fathers” — Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus — grew up in these lands. Gregory of Nazianzus was born on his family estate of Karbala, today’s Güzelyurt (formerly Gelveri), and died in retirement at nearby Arianzus on 25 January 390.

Koloneia was an important bishopric. Its bishop Euphrasius attended the First Council of Nicaea in 325; Bosporus the First Council of Constantinople in 381; Daniel the Council of Ephesus in 431; Aristomachus the Council of Chalcedon in 451; and Conon the Trullan Council of 692. The Catholic Church still lists Colonia in Cappadocia as a titular see.

In Byzantine times Koloneia was also a military centre, with an imperial assembly camp (aplekton). From the 7th century Arab raids repeatedly struck the region; the town changed hands many times and was largely ruined. In the same centuries monks carved churches and monasteries into the soft tuff of the Ihlara Valley, Selime and the Monastery Valley, while masonry churches such as the Red Church and Çanlı Kilise were built. We describe them one by one in our guide to the churches of Ihlara Valley.

The arrival of the Turks and the Danishmendids

After the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, Central Anatolia quickly came under Turkish rule. According to Ibn al-Athir, between 1081 and 1084 the town belonged to the domain of Suleiman ibn Qutalmish, founder of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum. The region was then held for a time by the Danishmendids, who struck coins in the city.

Most Danishmendid buildings have not survived. The only remaining example is the conical Bekar Sultan Tomb near the village of Bekarlar.

The Seljuks of Rum: Aksaray’s golden age

Aksaray’s real rise began with Sultan Kılıç Arslan II (1155–1192). He rebuilt the city, ruined by Arab raids, surrounded it with walls and endowed it with mosques, madrasas, a bazaar and bathhouses. He settled scholars, craftsmen and merchants brought from Azerbaijan in the city, which soon became one of the most important Seljuk centres after Konya — some sources call it a second capital.

The city sat right in the middle of the Uzun Yol (“Long Road”), the great caravan route linking Konya with Kayseri and Persia. The Seljuk sultans built monumental caravanserais along it: Alay Han on the Nevşehir road is considered one of the earliest Seljuk sultan’s inns (1192, according to some sources); Sultanhanı on the Konya road, built in 1229 under Alaeddin Kayqubad I, is the largest medieval caravanserai in Turkey; and Ağzıkarahan was completed between 1231 and 1240. Read more in our guide to the Seljuk caravanserais.

The Crooked Minaret in the city centre also dates from this period: built of red brick under Alaeddin Kayqubad I (1221–1237), its pronounced lean has made it the symbol of Aksaray. Of Aksaray Castle, traditionally dated to 1170 under Kılıç Arslan II, only fragments of the walls survive.

After the Battle of Köse Dağ in 1243, Anatolia fell under Mongol (Ilkhanid) influence. The 1256 battle between the Mongol commander Baiju and the Seljuk army is named after Sultanhanı. In 1277 the Mongols raided Aksaray and, according to sources, killed or enslaved 6,000 of its inhabitants.

The age of the beyliks: Eretnids, Karamanids and Somuncu Baba

As the Seljuk state broke up, Aksaray became a frontier city passing between the Anatolian principalities (beyliks). It was ruled by the Eretnids from 1341 to 1365, briefly by Kadı Burhaneddin, and then again by the Karamanids.

The finest buildings of this era are Karamanid. The Zinciriye Madrasa of 1336 is the only surviving example of the madrasas known from written sources in Aksaray; with its four-iwan plan, arcaded courtyard and tile-mosaic main iwan, it is a fine example of the open-courtyard madrasa. The Grand Mosque in the city centre was, according to its inscription, built in 1408–1409 for Mehmed II of Karaman and repaired under İbrahim Bey in 1482–1483.

In the same years Aksaray was also an important centre of Anatolian Sufism. Sheikh Hamid-i Veli, known as Somuncu Baba (1331–1412), teacher of Hacı Bayram-ı Veli, spent his last years and died in Aksaray; the Şeyhhamit neighbourhood is named after him.

Aksaray through the eyes of Ibn Battuta

The Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta, who crossed Anatolia in the 14th century, called Aksaray one of the most beautiful and best-built cities of the land of Rum. He described it as surrounded on every side by streams and orchards, with three canals running through the city and right into the houses, and vineyards and gardens within its walls.

Ibn Battuta wrote that the carpets and kilims woven from Aksaray sheep’s wool were unrivalled anywhere and were exported to Damascus, Egypt, Iraq, India and China. He stayed at the lodge of Sharif Husayn, the Eretnid deputy and a member of the Akhi brotherhood. The carpet tradition lives on around Sultanhanı to this day.

The Ottoman period

Bayezid I captured Aksaray in 1396, but after the Battle of Ankara in 1402 and Timur’s invasion the city returned to the Karamanids. It finally became Ottoman in the late 1460s under Mehmed the Conqueror; Turkish sources give 1467, while some English-language sources give 1470 and credit the campaign of İshak Pasha.

After the conquest many inhabitants were relocated to the new capital, Istanbul, where the district they settled was named after their home town — the Aksaray neighbourhood of Istanbul takes its name from here. These forced migrations set the city back for a time, and it was reduced first to a sanjak (liva) and later to a district (kaza) centre.

In Ottoman times Aksaray prospered again thanks to its proximity to Lake Tuz, Anatolia’s main source of salt. The Ottoman Grand Vizier Piri Mehmed Pasha (in office 1518–1523) was a native of Aksaray.

Aksaray as described by Evliya Çelebi

Evliya Çelebi, who visited in the 17th century, describes Aksaray as a sanjak capital of the Karaman province. Its castle, he writes, stood in the middle of the city on the bank of a large river — a four-cornered, solidly built stone fortress with five gates: the Small Gate, the Iron Gate, the Goat Gate, the Ereğli Gate and the Konya Gate.

Evliya notes that the Uluırmak flowed through the city, watering its buildings and passing under the Alaeddin Bridge, with “water running from every house, as in Bursa”. He calls the Grand Mosque the “Mosque of İbrahim Bey of Karaman” and lists ninety-eight small mosques, the Yılancık and Sulu madrasas, the tomb of Somuncu Baba and the Zinciriye Madrasa. Because people believed more than seven thousand saints were buried in the city, he adds, Aksaray was also called “the place of the righteous”.

Today the city’s main square occupies the site of the castle; the Kurşunlu Mosque stands where the Ereğli Gate once was, and the Zinciriye Madrasa marks the castle’s western entrance.

The Republic: province, district and province again

Aksaray’s administrative story is an unusual one. On 6 October 1920 a separate province was created with Aksaray as its centre, made up of the Aksaray, Arapsun (Gülşehir) and Şereflikoçhisar districts.

But Aksaray remained a province for only 13 years: Law No. 2197 of 20 May 1933 made it a district of Niğde, while Şereflikoçhisar was transferred to Ankara. The city stayed a district of Niğde for 56 years.

Law No. 3578 of 15 June 1989 made Aksaray a province again, with the licence-plate code 68. Today the province covers 7,659 km² and has 8 districts including the central one; Sultanhanı became a district in 2017. Around the main square you can still see striking public buildings from the early years of the Republic.

Little-known facts about Aksaray’s history

Aksaray’s long past is full of small but fascinating details that rarely make it into guidebooks. Here are some of them, with their sources:

• The Aksaray district of Istanbul is named after the people of this city who were resettled there under Mehmed the Conqueror.
• According to Evliya Çelebi, the Greeks called Aksaray “Pegahelna” in the 17th century.
• The cylindrical brick shaft of the Crooked Minaret is divided in two by a thin moulding: zigzag patterns below, green-blue tiles above.
• The kiosk mosque in the courtyard of Sultanhanı is considered the oldest known kiosk mosque in Turkey.
• The late-13th-century inscription of Kırkdamaltı Church in Ihlara names a Seljuk sultan and a Byzantine emperor in the same text.
• Aksaray High School stands on the remains of a Roman bathhouse.
• The stone building next to the Zinciriye Madrasa is the Azm-i Milli flour mill, built in the 1930s on Atatürk’s orders and now a museum.
• The Kurşunlu Mosque in the city centre is said to stand where the Ereğli Gate of Aksaray Castle once was.
• The Aksaray Stele was found in the city centre in 1976; its Luwian hieroglyphic inscription dates to the 8th century BC.
• Aksaray became a province in 1920, a district in 1933 and a province again on 15 June 1989; its licence-plate code is 68.

Traces of history in Aksaray today

You can see the traces of this long past in just a few days. In the city centre, the Grand Mosque, the Crooked Minaret, the Zinciriye Madrasa and the Tomb of Somuncu Baba are all within walking distance. Finds from every period are displayed together in the Aksaray Museum.

Outside the city, the Ihlara Valley, Selime Cathedral, Güzelyurt, Aşıklı Höyük and the Seljuk caravanserais make easy day trips. See our 1-, 2- and 3-day Aksaray itineraries for a suggested order, and our complete guide to things to do in Aksaray for every stop.

• Neolithic: Aşıklı Höyük (8200–7400 BC), Musular
• Bronze Age: Acemhöyük – Purushattum (20th–18th centuries BC)
• Iron Age: kingdom of Šinuḫtu, the Aksaray Stele (8th century BC)
• Roman–Byzantine: Archelais / Koloneia, the churches of Ihlara and Selime
• Seljuk: Kılıç Arslan II, the Crooked Minaret, Sultanhanı, Ağzıkarahan, Alay Han
• Beyliks: Zinciriye Madrasa (1336), Grand Mosque (1408–1409)
• Ottoman: late 1460s – 1920
• Republic: province (1920), district (1933), province again (15 June 1989)

Where to stay in Aksaray

Neva Apart offers fully equipped serviced apartments with kitchens in Aksaray city centre, a few minutes’ walk from the Zinciriye Madrasa and the Grand Mosque. It is an ideal base for day trips to Ihlara, Selime, Güzelyurt and the Seljuk caravanserais.

Browse our apartments, read guest reviews or contact us for bookings and route tips. Every stop is listed on our things to do in Aksaray page.

Sources

• Wikipedia – Aksaray
• Wikipedia – Archelais
• Kültür Portalı – Acemhöyük
• Kültür Portalı – Zinciriye Medresesi
• Wikipedia – Karamanids
• T.C. Aksaray Valiliği

Image credits

• Aksaray city with the 3,253-metre Mount Hasan in the background – Sonse, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
• The twin summits of snow-covered Mount Hasan volcano – prilfish, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
• Reconstruction of mud-brick Neolithic houses at Aşıklı Höyük – Joe Wallace, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
• Lower-town excavations at Acemhöyük in Yeşiltepe – Laszlovszky András, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
• Grave stelae in the garden of Aksaray Museum – Ingeborg Simon, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
• General view of the rock-cut monastery known as Selime Cathedral – Tevfik Teker, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
• The brick Crooked Minaret (Eğri Minare), symbol of Aksaray – Dosseman, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
• The Grand Mosque (Ulu Cami) in Aksaray city centre – NuriCanY, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
• The white salt crust on the shore of Lake Tuz – Wokege, CC0, Wikimedia Commons
• The Clock Tower on Aksaray’s main square – NuriCanY, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons